David Fike

David J. Fike, PhD became GGU's seventh President in August of 2015.

Dr. Fike was formerly the president of Marygrove College, a century-old liberal arts institution in Detroit. He joined Marygrove in 2005, serving as provost for one year before becoming Marygrove's president. During his nine-year presidential tenure, Dr. Fike provided the strategic vision that recast the college's legacy as a commitment to develop students' talents, skills, and dispositions to lead in urban communities and he garnered the resources, including a three-year $1.5M curriculum development grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to support faculty in carrying out this commitment.

Dr. Fike has ties to the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to his appointment at Marygrove, he was chief academic officer and dean of faculty at Holy Names University in Oakland, California, a position he held from 1997 until 2005. As chief academic officer, he had oversight of the $6.5M annual Academic Affairs Division budget, all academic programs, campus information technology, library services, student registration processes, learning support resources and advising services. He joined Holy Names in 1992 as a faculty member in economics, teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels and serving as a frequent guest lecturer and presenter on such topics as socially responsible investing, economic revitalization and community development.

Dr. Fike has served as an elected official in Kensington, California, from 1994 to 1998. He has held numerous appointed positions on boards and commissions, including the BioScience Workforce Advisory Team for the City of Oakland, the Life Sciences Task Force of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, the Bay Area's Community Capital Investment Initiative, the Community Reinvestment Subcommittee of Alameda County's Economic Development Advisory Board, the City of Oakland's Sustainable Community Development Commission, the BayTEC Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of AnewAmerica Community Corporation, and the Board of Directors of the Chabot Space and Science Center.

As an economist specializing in capital markets and urban economic development, Dr. Fike has provided consulting services and research in the areas of economic revitalization, sustainable community development practices, capital access in underserved markets, and strategic decision-making. His clients have included the City of Oakland (participating in the development of the Mayor's Economic Development Strategy, among other projects) and the Community Bank of the Bay, the first de novo community development bank in the western United States.

Dr. Fike also served as part of a team sent to Central America to develop a strategic plan for the establishment of a nationally chartered bank to finance infrastructure projects for El Salvador's cooperative sector.

In 1995, Dr. Fike was granted a prestigious Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship. As a fellow, he investigated innovative public/private partnerships designing sustainable development strategies for low-income urban communities. He has presented on the topics of socially responsible investing, economic revitalization and community development, and he is the recipient of teaching awards from the University of Maryland, College Park and Holy Names University, as well as a co-author of Everything You Need to Know About Economics.

Dr. Fike holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.